IS ABORTION REALLY DESIGNATED A SIN IN THE BIBLE?

Although there is no verse that explicitly mentions “abortion,” there are many that would designate it a sin. Of course, there is the general injunction against taking the life of a human:

•                “Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind. (Genesis. 9:6)

The Bible makes no distinction between the human pre-born and the human post-born. A human is a human and not an animal. There is therefore no reason why this prohibition wouldn’t also apply to humans in the womb:

•                "Do not pollute the land where you are. Bloodshed pollutes the land, and atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it.” (Numbers 35:33; Gen. 1:26-27)

The next verse identifies what happens when a pre-born is killed:

•                "If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury [to the fetus], the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury [to the fetus], you are to take life for life.” (Exodus 21:22-23)

If there is serious injury to the fetus, the penalties seem to be the same as the penalties for injury to a post-born. If the pre-born dies, there is to be a life for a life. Clearly, the pre-born is regarded as a human life in the same way the post-born is.

We also observe that God has profound interest in the fetus, as He does with any human:

•                For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. (Psalm 139:13-14)

God tells his Prophet Jeremiah that even in the womb, he was a “you” not an “it”:

•                "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." (Jeremiah 1:5)

Even in the womb, the pre-born is considered a “baby”:

•                As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. (Luke 1:44)

The baby is God’s workmanship:

•                “Did not he who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one form us both within our mothers?” (Job 31:15)

Abortion was explicitly condemned by the early church:

•                “Love your neighbor as yourself…You shall not murder a child by abortion nor shall you kill a newborn.” (Didache)

•                “You shall love your neighbor more than your own life. You shall not murder a child by abortion nor shall you kill a newborn.” (Barnabus)

•                [In a vision of Hell] “I saw…women…who produced children out of wedlock and who procured abortions.” (Apocalypse of Peter)

In fact, there exists no Biblical evidence that we should not regard the fetus as a human being created in the image of God.

If you have had an abortion, confess your sin to the Lord, and He will forgive and cleanse you of your sins (1 John 1:9) that you might find the healing you will never find by trying to convince yourself that you did what was right.

THE MAKING OF A MISSIONARY

Paul was arguably the greatest missionary the Church has known. Interestingly, he had also been its greatest sinner (1 Tim. 1:15-16). How was God able to take a man who had been a hard-hearted oppressor and to convert him into a tender-hearted servant? Once, he had been forcing Christians to renounce Jesus, and now he was pleading with them, by any means, to receive Him:

·       To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. (1 Corinthians 9:22; ESV)

What brought about this transformation? This is a question that all of us who want to be Christ-like ask.

The faithful Christian, Ananias, could hardly believe that such a transformation was possible. After God had told him to go to Paul and to lay his hands on him in prayer to receive his sight back, Ananias assumed that God was making a grave mistake. However, He explained:

·       “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” (Acts 9:15-16)

We can do nothing without God (2 Cor. 3:5; John 15:4-5). We must be chosen and equipped, but how does God equip? Paul wouldn’t be able to “carry my name before the Gentiles…” without suffering “for the sake of my name.”

I want to be everything to the Lord, but the extent of Paul’s suffering is mind-boggling. He related:

·       You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me… (Galatians 4:13-14)

Whatever his “bodily ailment,” it was a “trial to” the Galatians, something that might have caused them to “scorn or despise” Paul. How humiliating!

We do not know what this horrid ailment was. However, Paul understood that it had mysteriously enabled him to preach the Gospel.

Perplexing? Paul was taught that his work depended on learning to trust in God. This meant that he could no longer trust in Himself – his own abilities and winsomeness:

·       For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. (2 Corinthians 1:8-9)

To learn to not trust in ourselves is horribly painful. It means being stripped of our pride and even our confidence that people will like, respect, and receive us. Paul’s ailment had caused him to despair of such confidence.

However, the stripping away of self-confidence and our pleasures took many other forms:

·       To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things. (1 Corinthians 4:11-13)

Am I willing to pick up such a Cross? Can I? Certainly not by my own strength! “Lord help me!” And He does. Paul extended to us the promise of Christ-like-ness, one that would come with a price-tag:

·       Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. (2 Corinthians 4:10-11)

How can we endure this? Humanly, we cannot. Why am I relating this? To encourage you that our Lord has a purpose for your suffering. He is preparing you. Use this gift of suffering, knowing that it is not about you but about Him (Gal 2:20)!

The extent of Paul’s suffering was unbelievable:

·       With far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. (2 Corinthians 11:23-27)

Through God’s incomprehensible ministrations, instead of breaking Paul, God used suffering to produce in him a heart of compassion, as the next two verses demonstrate:

·       And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?

As if this wasn’t enough suffering, God added a “thorn in the flesh” in order to keep Paul humble and dependent. But He also gave Paul the understanding that His grace was enough to keep him afloat:

·       But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

If only we might learn that weakness is a gift. It forces us to look above to our only source of hope and strength. This is the only way that we can serve Him. “If God is for us, who can be against us” (Romans 8:31-32)!

Consequently, I inform my students that I no longer trust in myself; nor do I want too, lest I be deprived of the power of God.

Our Lord is able to make the least and most unworthy of us to stand for Him:

·       Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. (Romans 14:4)

I trust that the Lord will equip me to serve Him, even in martyrdom, if this is His calling. Therefore, let us take up our Cross.

Ethics, Equality, and Human Exceptionalism

It seems that the success of the West has depended on the presupposition of human exceptionalism and human equality. However, this idea is now under serious attack. We are having difficulty defending it against numerous vigorous challenges. For instance:

• What makes humans exceptional? Why shouldn’t we kill and eat humans as we do chickens and pigs? 

Some will argue that we are more valuable than chickens, but to whom? Certainly we are not more valuable to other chickens. Who then can authoritatively assign relative value? Is our value then determined by other humans? Why?

Besides, do we want our value to be culturally or governmentally determined? Instead, we would prefer that our value be based on an objective intrinsic basis – on who we are as human beings rather than chickens.

However, this opens the door to another problem. What intrinsically makes us more valued? Some will argue that we are more intelligent, sensitive, or creative. Well, this is true. However, why should our superiority over the chicken make us more valuable or important? Also, the chicken can do things that we can’t do. She can lay eggs and raise many more young than we can. They are also fearless mothers!

Besides, this kind of reasoning opens the door to many ethical problems. If intelligence makes us more valuable and extends to us more legal protections and rights, then we should be placing greater value on those who are more intelligent, educated, and sensitive, right? Consequently, we would also have to degrade the value of the less intelligent – children, the mentally ill, uneducated, and the elderly. Therefore, to assign value based on human characteristics is to undermine the concept of equality.

Also, if our legal system is to operate in a manner consistent with this criterion of intelligence, then it should extend more rights and protections to the intelligent. Clearly, this kind of thinking will undermine the fabric of our society.

Some postmodernists avoids this problem by asserting that all life is of equal value. However, this assertion is loaded with its own set of problems:

1. What endows life with value? Is this no more than an arbitrary assertion?

2. How can any legal system accommodate the need to criminalize human murder along with cockroach murder? It would seem that the legal system would crash under the weight of its broadened responsibilities.

3. Such a morality would not be humanly livable. It would mean that we couldn’t swat mosquitoes, exterminate termites, and even take anti-biotics. 

Just as problematic as these three problems is the problem of “equal value.” Where does this notion of equality come from? Instead, we observe inequality wherever we look. There is nothing equal between a termite and a cow. They are different in every respect. Upon what then can equality be based?

Even in regards to humanity, we observe little in the way of equality. Some are old, others young. Some are productive, others not. Some contribute to the welfare of society; others do not. 

Nevertheless, we intuitively know that what we value in the West cannot be preserved without the belief articulated in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” – an ascertain that transcends the observable and must find its justification in another realm where true equality exists.

What is the basis for equality? The Declaration claims that equality is found in the mind of an immutable God:

• We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Perhaps “unalienable” human Rights” are not “self-evident.” However, what is evident is that these rights cannot be founded on human decisions. Such decisions are always in flux. If the government grants a human right, the government can also rescind that right. However, if it depends on God, then these rights are “unalienable” and unchangeable.

Are we truly more valued than the sparrow before God? Yes, according to Jesus:

• “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of MORE VALUE THAN MANY SPARROWS.” (Matthew 10:29-31)  

Why? We alone are created in the likeness of God Himself:

• Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26)

Consequently, once we reject God, we reject the only rational and sufficient basis for human equality. God help us!

SAME-SEX MARRIAGE (SSM) AND ITS BIBLICAL “SUPPORT”

In a New York Times editorial, Push Within Religions for Gay Marriage Gets Little Attention, Samuel Freedman cites several who attempt to biblically defend SSM.

• “Dignity, the high value of each individual person, their immeasurable value, their sacred value, is in its roots a Christian value,” said the Rev. David P. Gushee, a professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University in Macon, Ga. “Dignity language is a widely used cognate for the idea that every person is made in God’s image and is sacred for that reason."

Does the fact that we all have an inherent dignity and worth, having been created in the image of God, justify SSM? If it does, then this image can also be appealed to to justify any number of behaviors and institutions like adultery, pedophilia, polyamory, incest, bestiality and even murder. Instead, it is because we have inherent dignity that we shouldn't defile it by sinning.

While bearing the image of God dignifies all human beings, it certainly does not dignify all behaviors.

Freedman then cites Rabbi Margaret Moers Wenig's argumentation in support of SSM:

• "Religious arguments in support of marriage equality matter because religious arguments have long been used against not only marriage equality but also against gay people’s very right to love and even to live.”

If gays have a right to marry, from where does it come. Certainly not from God! There is not a single verse in the Bible or in the writings of any major religion giving even the slightest support for SSM.

While a nation may grant SSM - and some Western nations have done so - this doesn't address the issue of whether gays have an intrinsic right to SSM or whether nations have a moral obligation to legally provide SSM.

Can SSM be justified pragmatically? Certainly not in terms of the welfare of children! Countless studies have demonstrated that children fare best with two biological parents.

Besides, in view of the high incidence of STDs, substance abuse, mental health issues, suicide, and greatly abbreviated lifespans among gays, pragmatism should argue against gay adoption and even SSM.

Wenig mentions, "gay people’s very right to love" who they want. Should society stand in judgment over this by regulating our relationships? Perhaps not, but this is not the issue. Even before the Supreme Court decision, gays could freely affiliate with whomever.

Instead, SSM is about coercing the nation to endorse the gay lifestyle and is not about who they can live with. Instead, SSM has been about:

1. Training children that this highly destructive lifestyle is a reasonable option.

2. Penalizing any who disagree, even to the point of losing their business, employment or even their freedom if they refuse to pay highly exorbitant fines.

3. Undermining First Amendment guaranteed rights.

4. Placing children in jeopardy.

Freedman then cites a Dr. Hendricks:

• "The virulent opposition [against SSM] can’t be sustained by an informed reading of the [biblical] text,” said Dr. Hendricks, who is now a visiting scholar in the religion department at Columbia University. “The opposition to homosexuality has a basis in culture that’s masquerading as religion. The textual evidence is ambiguous, at best. So the role of Bible scholars who support marriage equality is to show that there’s no biblical reason to oppress gay people. They are children of God.”

It is not a matter of "oppressing gay people," as this inflammatory language claims. Rather, it's a matter of legalizing a lifestyle and an institution that has repeatedly been shown to be highly self-destructive.

More importantly, is the biblical text "ambiguous" in regards to homosexuality? Hardly! Kevin DeYoung has written:

• Even many revisionist scholars acknowledge that the Bible is uniformly negative toward same-sex activity. The gay Dutch scholar Pim Pronk, after admitting that many Christians are eager to see homosexuality supported by the Bible, states plainly, “In this case that support is lacking.”[2] Although he doesn’t think moral positions must be dependent on the Bible (which is why he can support homosexual behavior), as a scholar he recognizes that “wherever homosexual intercourse is mentioned in Scripture, it is condemned. … Rejection is a foregone conclusion; the assessment of it nowhere constitutes a problem.”[3] Pronk recognizes that wherever the Bible speaks on this issue, it speaks with one voice. Likewise, Dan O. Via, in arguing for the revisionist view opposite Robert Gagnon, acknowledges, “Professor Gagnon and I are in substantial agreement that the biblical texts that deal specifically with homosexual practice condemn it unconditionally.”[4] No positive argument for homosexuality can be made from the Bible, only arguments that texts don’t mean what they seem to mean, and that specific texts can be overridden by other considerations.

If the Bible had been ambiguous on the subject of homosexuality, these pro-gay scholars would have also claimed that the Bible is ambiguous, but honesty prevented them from resorting to such an unsupportable argument.